Week 17 Post Production

Monday: Today we started getting the footage together and placing the tree into the scenes. We returned the equipment and just finished the editing process.

Tuesday: We spent today fixing the final render and lighting. It was almost done. We showed the teachers our film during the editing process and they pointed out a few problems in our film. We got some recommendations from the teachers and we spent the last hour fixing up as much as we can.

Wednesday: I was unable to come in today due to family obligations but I kept in contact with the group. They were able to fix up the color correction and the edit. It seems as if we were almost finished but we just needed to complete our VFX breakdowns.

Thursday: 

Week 16 Post Production

Sunday: Today was the day of the shoot but I couldn't make it due to track maintenance. I practiced with the old tree while I was waiting for the group to upload the new shots on our Dropbox. I got the shots and we talked though our group chat and we decided to do some re-shoots for some shots on Monday. I told them that Andrews car will be full again and we decided that I can stay behind to practice some animation since I wont be useful there.

Monday: The group excluding myself went to Eds to finish off the final shots. I did some animation on the old tree before I get the new re-textured and re-rigged version of it. 
 
Tuesday: We looked at the footage today and saw that some shots deviated from the storyboard. We showed one of our teachers today and we given his recommendation on what to do next. We were told to keep the story simple and not make it complicated, have one more shot to actually show what our tree can do and to get it together for Thursday. He told us it doesnt need to be done by Thursday but just to show what we have so far so we can fix a few things up and be made sure not to stray from our goal.

Wednesday: We came in today to do the final re shoot of the film and get the final shot but we couldn't arrive to our filming location due to the owner being away until 3:30pm. I worked on the first animation scene of the film so we can implement it the footage and it looked great. It was time for us to leave so we headed off to Eds to film but by the time we got there we could only do one shot before we had to return the equipment and the sun was going down so we had an extremely different lighting compared to the other shots. We plan to come back tomorrow and finish it off so we can get the filming process done.

Thursday: Today we were given feedback on what he currently have in our film. We were told that most of our shots were blurry or too long. We were told to edit down our footage and film once again since we have the exact shots that we needed with the edit. We planned to film on Friday but some of us couldn't make it.

Friday: I was unable to make it Friday due to family issues but I kept in contact with the team. They were doing the edit so we know exactly what shots to take and what we need to do.

Saturday: We all turned up to Ed's house. Since we were all there already I decided to finish off the animation at Ed's while the rest of them filmed, I occasionally gave input to some shots. We were able to finish off both animation and shots today but we could only review a few shots due to Ed having to go to work but we had all the stuff we needed to finish off the film.

Week 15 Post Production

Monday: Today started with a rush, we had to present a final product of our film tomorrow but we didn't have the shots. We had a group meeting to discuss what we can do with what we have currently here. We finally got the shots when Ed showed up but were told not all of them were finished. It was nearly time to leave so we headed off to the library to transfer files and discuss what we were going to do. We decided that showing something was better than nothing and stayed up most of the night rendering what was left of the shots and hoping it was good enough.

Tuesday: We had to present today but I was held up by family issues and a train delay. I didn't make it to the presentation in time but was told that our film was incredibly bad and had a lot of things wrong with it. We were told to just come back Thursday for reviews on our film.

Thursday: Today we got our feedback from the teachers and were basically told it was terrible. We couldn't salvage it but we could try and make something again within our 2 week limit. We decided to work together again as a group instead of doing individual works on our own and went back to figure out how to do this right. We started on the storyboard and looked at it again and set up a plan for the next week and tomorrow.

Friday: We came in today and worked on the storyboards to figure out our story for the new project. We created a new story board which featured the tree a lot more and was all based indoors We all agreed that all the shots will be indoor due to time (Council permits take a while to get) and weather. We chose Ed's place since its a convenient location from South-bank and decided to Film on Sunday.

Week 14 Post Production

Monday: The tree animation is finished and I showed it to the group and they liked it. We now just need to implement it into the scenes that need the tree animated. The group is getting a bit stressed since a few of the shots haven't been completed and Ed hasn't been turning up till late in the day for quite some time. I'm hoping this doesn't get the group down. We're spending the rest of our time trying to do what we can with the shots we have. We still haven't done anything about audio but Dom volunteered to do it.

Tuesday: Today wasn't too much of a big day. We spent time rendering the shots we had. Ed didn't show up to class until 3 and the group has been stressing about the films completion. Hopefully it will be done. 
Thursday: Today was spent fixing up a bit of animation errors and setting up some shots inside 3DS Max with Cairnaghn and Andrew to get some scenes finished for the final edit.

Week 13 Post Production

Monday: Monday started a bit stressful. Every time I tried to animate the tree it crashed. Andrew tried and it crashed for him. He decided to quickly re-rig some of it and tried again but once again it crashed. I looked up to see what problems there were and I found a solution. If the program was crashing I should export as an OBJ then import it back in and it should fix the problem. I had a bit of trouble exporting but got it to work but before we were able to test it we had to leave because another class was coming in. I was unable to test it at home but Andrew messaged me saying it worked. I was glad but then he messaged me a few minutes later and it still crashed. I decided to fix this tomorrow.

Tuesday: Today was a bit stress filled once again due to the tree crashing again. Ed wasn't at class at the time due to work so I asked if I could try and fix it before he got here and if it wasn't fixed before he got here we'll scrap the animation in 3DS Max and do it in After Effects. I found another solution that the model itself might be corrupt. So I had to select all the faces of the tree, detach it to a new object. I did it and it finally worked without crashing.

Thursday: Today wasn't spent animating the tree unfortunately I saw some of the meshes bent strangely when I moved it and I had to spend a bit of time looking for weird meshes in the tree while showing them to Andrew so he could fix them. I decided to do the animation at home to save us some time. Everyone's getting a little stressed since we only have one week until the "final presentation".

Week 12 Post Production

Tuesday: We came back from our one week off to find out we had to present again. We weren't ready and didn't have each others files so we did a lackluster job of presenting what we currently had. We showed our rigging process and our model because we had no other files. We got some criticism from our teacher and I wrote them down to tell to Ed and Cairnaghn so they know incase one of us was away to always have each others files. We decided to fix up some of our documentation that still needed to be addressed since we didn't have much to do without the main files. I was going to animate but the tree was apparently still having some slight glitches when it moves so I still have to wait.

Thursday: The group wanted to have a quick meeting to talk about what was happening and what we needed to do. We told each other what we're doing at the moment then went off to do our separate things. I spent most of my day with Andrew talking about the tree and getting ready to animate it.

Week 11 Post Production

Monday: I talked to Andrew about the tree but apparently he hadn't started the rigging yet so I had to wait a bit until he finished with it. Nothing else of importance happened.

Tuesday: I was feeling pretty useless today as I had nothing to do until I got the tree. I looked around at other peoples work while talking to them what our plan was. We were planning of talking tomorrow about what we need to do and finish.

Thursday: We started the day with a quick meeting about what was happening. Dom and Ed just said they were working on the shots. Andrew said he finished the tree rig already but just needs to rename the bones so he can skin them and it will be all ready for the animation process. I was pretty excited for it since it meant I could finally do something. A picture of the tree: